Archival Material about James Edward Calhoun’s Life

A number of archival repositories have valuable material documenting the life of James Edward Calhoun. The collections at South Caroliniana Library of the University of South Carolina at Columbia entitled the John Ewing Colhoun Papers and James Edward Calhoun Papers contain numerous letters of the Calhoun/Colhoun family, with letters of James Edward Calhoun and letters to him by family members, including his mother Floride Bonneau Colhoun.[2] Also in the holdings of South Caroliniana Library are the Francis de Sales Dundas Papers, with documents pertaining to James Edward Calhoun. Though some forty years younger than James, Dundas’ father William Oswald Dundas (1841-1920) was a close friend of James Edward, and his son Francis, who wrote a biographical sketch of James, was an heir of a portion of James’ estate.[3]

At Wilson Library of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, the collection entitled the John Ewing Colhoun Papers, 1774-1961, includes a diary kept by James Edward Calhoun from April 1825 to April 1826.[4] The online finding aid for this collection linked in the preceding footnote states the following about the diary:

The diary of James Edward Calhoun, 116 pages, contains entries, April 1825-April 1826, in which he described travel in North and South Carolina, Georgia, and social life in Charleston and Washington, D.C., where he attended balls with John C. Calhoun and met, among others, John Randolph and General William Clark. Besides describing the social life and agriculture of the regions through which he traveled, Calhoun discussed the capture of runaway slaves, the execution of two slaves for poisoning their master, and economic conditions in Kentucky. He was also extremely interested in the exploration of Indian mounds, which he described in great detail, and in Indian artifacts, which he collected. A typed transcription of the diary is included. Caution should be exercised when using this transcription, since it appears to have many minor inaccuracies.

Also in this collection are a number of plantation papers for James Edward Calhoun, including a plantation journal he kept between 1830 and 1834, in which he discusses his “scientific” approach to farming.

Princeton University Library has a collection entitled the James Edward Calhoun Correspondence which contains letters written to James Edward during his years in the Navy, some of them dealing with the political situation in places in which he was stationed during his years of service.[5] James Edward’s Naval years spanned the period 1817 to 1833.

And the Booth Family Center for Special Collections at Georgetown University Library has a collection entitled the William O. Dundas Collection, which contains letters that James Edward Calhoun exchanged with William Oswald Dundas, a Naval officer who was a lifelong friend of James Edward Calhoun and whose son Francis de Sales Dundas wrote a biographical sketch of James.[6] The Southern Historical Historical Collection at Wilson Library of University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, also has a collection of Dundas’ papers. Finally, Duke University has in its special collections manuscript holdings a logbook kept by James Edward Calhoun during his Naval years.

Early Life

A previous posting transcribes and discusses a letter that Benjamin Green, who was tutoring John Ewing Colhoun’s children, sent to John E. Colhoun on 24 February 1802 when Colhoun was serving in the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C.[7] In the letter, Benjamin Green reports to John E. Colhoun on the academic progress of his children,

I cannot complain, of your son & daughters prog[ress] we at least ke[ep] busy — James is frequently now my bedfellow [but?] I cannot yet prevail on him to make any [li]terary advances — —

I take this to mean that Benjamin was trying to teach James Edward his letters, and James, who was, after all, only four years old at the time, was not making satisfactory progress at learning to read.

James Joins the Navy

On 30 May 1816, James Edward Calhoun was appointed a midshipman in the U.S. Navy. According to his biographer Francis de Sales Dundas, he was notified of the appointment by a letter dated 17 June 1816, addressed to him at the Bath plantation of his brother-in-law and cousin John C. Calhoun in Abbeville County, enclosing his warrant dated 30 May 1816.[8] On 7 January 1817, James Edward was ordered to report for duty in New Orleans, where he served on the U.S.S. Congress under Captain Charles Morris. A letter of John C. Calhoun in Washington, D.C., to his brother-in-law John Ewing Colhoun in Charleston dated 30 January 1817 states, “James left for New Orleans by water about two weeks since.”[9]

In the James Edward Calhoun Papers in the South Caroliniana library there’s a Congressional order to report dated 12 April 1817 from Daniel F. Patterson, informing James Edward Calhoun, midshipman in New Orleans, to repair on board the U.S. gunboat at anchor off Fort St. John on Lake Pontchartrain to the U.S. frigate Congress under command of Captain Charles Morris. According to Dundas, James Edward was aboard the Congress by 26 April.[10] A logbook that James Edward kept while aboard the Congress under Charles Morris, with a starting date of 22 June 1817, is held by Duke University in its the special collections holdings (ms. 5302). It details the movements of the ship in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean region.

Dundas says that the Congress came north in the fall of 1817 and then sailed from Norfolk for Rio de Janeiro under the command of Captain Arthur Sinclair in December, returning to Norfolk in July 1818.[11] On 10 November 1817, James Edward wrote his brother-in-law John C. Calhoun from the Congress while it was in Norfolk, noting that the ship was to sail under Captain Sinclair to Buenos Aires.[12] Previously, John C. Calhoun had written James Edward on 27 October 1817 from his Bath plantation, speaking of James’ safe arrival in Norfolk aboard the Congress. A note appended to this letter in the transcription of it provided by The Papers of John C. Calhoun notes that James was made midshipman on 30 May 1816, furloughed for eight months twice (on 12 June 1821 and 23 April 1823), made lieutenant on 28 April 1826, and he then left active service in the Navy on 21 July 1829.[13]

On 26 December 1817, John C. Calhoun wrote to James Edward’s brother John Ewing Colhoun stating that James had sailed on the Congress with the commissioners for South America. A note appended to this letter as it’s transcribed in The Papers of John C. Calhoun states that James had sailed from Hampton Roads on 4 December 1817.[14]

In a 7 August 1818 letter to John C. Calhoun, Caesar Augustus Rodney, a former representative to the U.S. House from Delaware, speaks of “the favorable opinion I had formed of Midshipman [James Edward] Calhoun from his gentlemanly deportment & exemplary conduct on board the Congress.” Rodney was among three commissioners sent by President Monroe to Latin America who began their journey aboard the Congress on 4 December 1817, with James Edward Calhoun on board.[15]

In a 2 October 1818 letter, James Edward’s uncle Andrew Norris wrote from Walnut Grove, South Carolina, to John C. Calhoun, stating that he was enclosing a letter of James Edward Calhoun along with $300 prior to James’ sailing.[16] As the previous posting notes, Andrew Norris managed James’ Millwood plantation in Abbeville County while he was overseas during his Naval years.

A 12 March 1819 letter of John C. Calhoun to Patrick Noble of Abbeville states that James Edward was leaving this place (identified only as “War Department”) in a few days on the frigate Congress.[17] According to Dundas, the Congress sailed for the coast of Brazil on 16 May 1819 under the command of Captain John D. Henley, returning to Hampton Roads on 29 May 1821, with James aboard.[18]  

In the James Edward Calhoun Papers held by South Caroliniana Library at University of South Carolina, there’s a 21 April 1819 letter to James from his mother Floride Bonneau Colhoun, writing from Charleston and addressing him as midshipman on the frigate Congress at Annapolis. Floride states that she had just received the first letter she had had from her son since he left her to enter Naval service. She had seen in the newspapers some days since that the Congress had sailed from Norfolk, which made her heart sink, and not having heard from her son added to her distress. Floride states,

It would in some degree mitigate the pain of separation could I hear sometimes from you, and let me intreat you to write me as soon as you get this, which I think will reach you before you leave Annapolis, and at other ports you touch, and direct to John E., as it will be the most certain way of my getting them.

She then goes on to say, “I can entertain but little hope of seeing you again, a heart rending thought indeed….” She could trust only in the guidance and protection of her Heavenly Father as she continually interceded at the throne of His grace that He might make her son a fit heir of his kingdom, and baptize her son with the illuminating, pacifying, and transforming influence of his Holy Spirit. Floride also told James that she prayed for protection from all the wounds her son might meet “in this boisterous world,” and, as he was “surrounded with many temptations,” that God might grant him “restraining Grace, and prevent [him] from doing that which would embitter [his] days.” Her only desire, Floride told James, was to be as the importunate widow and wrestling Jacob and to implore God that her children would be Christians indeed.

Floride notes that James might be displeased with her writing to him on a subject that was of no interest to him, but to her, nothing was of such importance as the salvation of his precious soul. After imparting news of the family and Charleston (where the Strawberry Races had commenced), Floride added,

I am most mortified that you did not write to Colonel Pickens, do write to him, and enclose it to me, he left Pendleton for the Alabama a week before John E. got up and expects to return in about two months.

As a previous posting notes, Colonel Pickens was Andrew Pickens, son of Andrew Pickens and Rebecca Calhoun, a first cousin of James Edward.

As I noted above, James Edward was furloughed on 12 June 1821. The furlough, which had been for eight months, was renewed for another eight months on 22 April 1822, and then renewed again for the same period of time on 23 April 1823.[19]

James Solicits Brother John’s Help to Manage His Millwood Plantation, 1820s

The previous posting discusses several letters of the 1820s which show that there was difficulty, if not outright tension, between James Edward and his brother John Ewing Colhoun in the 1820s due to James’ Naval service and his determination to remain in the Navy when his family wanted him to return home. The linked posting notes a 13 May 1824 letter that James Edward wrote his brother John from Washington, D.C., asking John (who was then in Charleston) to take care of his business affairs during James’ Naval service.[20] The letter indicates that James and John’s uncle Andrew Norris was managing James’ Millwood and Midway plantations, but Andrew’s health was precarious and James wanted John to take over the management of the plantations.  

As the posting linked in the previous paragraph indicates, on 28 June 1824 John wrote his brother James stating that he could not possibly take over management of James’ plantation and business affairs while tending to his own, and urging James to come home.[21] John advised James to reconsider his plans to continue seeking preferment in the Navy, when he’d be an old man by the time he was promoted to the commander’s position he wanted.

On 10 September 1824, John wrote James again noting the death of their uncle Andrew Norris (who died 31 July 1824), and relenting his refusal to assist with managing James’ plantations.[22] This letter, too, is discussed in the previous posting. The linked posting also points to a 12 October 1824 letter that James and John’s cousin Andrew Pickens sent John E. Colhoun, stating that he had left Washington, after having seen James Edward in New York, where James was expecting to sail with the Navy to the Mediterranean.[23] James Edward had asked Andrew to see if his brother John might manage his plantation and affairs while James was overseas.

Entries James Edward made in his diary in 1825 indicate some of the reasons he was reluctant to return to South Carolina.[24] In an entry dated 29 September 1825, James wrote:

Though returning to the land of my nativity & of my relatives, I confess I made the visit reluctantly but was forced to take the step by the posture of my affairs. Remaining at the North, I could by this time have acquired the Hebrew & the German languages & improved my knowledge of the Spanish. I would also have devoted much attention to the writings of the early historians & travellers on this Continent, at the same time qualifying myself better as a Topographer & Astronomical Observer.

On 30 September, James noted that he had recently left his mother’s house. He observes: “But we ‘Southrons’ are little given to the pencil & hardly merit to be called a thinking people.” The diary also records that James had just finished reading a history of the House of Brandenburg, a French edition he read in English translation, on which he offers incisive comments. In November, James notes in his diary that he was reading Greek daily and had completed the first three books of Herodotus the day before. His desire to remain in the Navy was, in part, about his interest in traveling the world, learning about other cultures, and learning various languages. Newspaper accounts of his life in his later years speak of James as a polyglot fluent in a large number of languages. He resisted returning to the South because, as he said frankly, intellectual pursuits were limited in that part of the United States, and few people had much interest in reading, learning, and the life of the mind.

James Edward was made a Naval lieutenant on 28 April 1826, and he then left active service in the Navy on 21 July 1829. After having returned to his Millwood home in Abbeville County, James then resigned his commission on 11 November 1833.[25] Dundas notes that after his Naval career ended, James Edward spent the rest of his life living at his Millwood plantation on the Savannah River in Abbeville County.[26] In the Francis Wilkinson Pickens Papers in Duke University’s manuscript collections, there is a 6 April 1839 deed of James’ cousin Francis Wilkinson Pickens to James for a tract of land adjoining James’ land. The tract land appears to be in Edgefield County.

Mary Elizabeth Moragné Skewers James with Her Acid Pen

As the previous posting states, in a diary she kept from January 1836 to March 1842, Mary Elizabeth Moragné, who grew up at Oakwood near the New Bordeaux settlement in Abbeville County, makes repeated observations, many of them acerbic and less than generous, about members of the Calhoun family whom she knew personally as their neighbor. James Edward Calhoun was, in particular, a target of Moragné’s acid pen.

On 14 July 1837, Moragné recounts that she had spent the night at the house of the famed Presbyterian divine and educator Reverend Moses Waddel, whose first wife was Catherine Calhoun, a daughter of Patrick Calhoun and sister of John C. Calhoun.  Moragné says that when she stayed with Dr. Waddel, also visiting him was “the eccentric, & wicked, but highly gifted James Edward Calhoun.”[27] Moragné records that James Edward tried unsuccessfully to draw Waddel into a discussion of a literary topic, and then turned to her and smiling as “he showed the whole of his white teeth,” he tried to obtain her consent to the proposition that the Catholic priesthood of Cuba was corrupt. She demurred, at which point James came over to her chair to show her some engravings in a history of the bible he was reading, displaying “a most intimate knowledge” of the subject, with “the acute criticism & delicate appreciation of [the] refined scholar.”

Moragné says that she was perfectly aware as this transpired that this was one of “his better moments.”  But:[28]

I was wondering where in the constitution of the gentlemanly scholar, as he appeared to be, existed that low taste of which I heard him accused: – for certainly if not an evidence of weakness, profane swearing is a violation of good taste; and as good taste is essential to good manners ­– the profane swearer is necessarily a vulgar man.

On 19 July 1838, Moragné again speaks of encountering James Edward, this time at the home of Floride Noble near Willington, where Dr. Waddel had an academy.[29] Floride was a cousin of James Edward, the daughter of Patrick Calhoun Noble and Elizabeth Bonneau Pickens. 

The house was full on this occasion, Moragné noted. She writes:

Soon after my arrival, Mr. Calhoun, – that strange James Edward! ­– sent for the young ladies to walk, – they went, & I remained alone with Floride. I went out to tea; & remained in the room a short time after: I was sitting by “Sally, lovely Sally” at the piano, when happening to look behind me, I saw two forms seated very closely on the dark corner of the piazza with their feet [on] the ground. What was my surprise, to see them start up on being observed, in the living semblances of Miss Belt and Mr. Calhoun?

They paraded the piazza for some time very lovingly, but she left him, & he then came in & walked the room with an impatient step. Sarah Calhoun was playing, & I was assisting her to sing – he came up, & made some remark about my playing the Guitar, of which he acquired a proficiency in Spain, when young, & a rover of the American Navy. Just then unfortunately for my entertainment, Miss Belt entered the room, & he pounced upon her, like a duck upon a June-bug. I wish to heaven I had a more elegant simile; but nothing else could convey the idea half so well! The boys, John, & Ezekiel, looked at me & laughed, even Col. Noble’s politeness compromised with a smile, & I shook in spite of a handkerchief stuffed down my throat. The young lady by a very expert manoevre, not difficult to coquettes, had avoided the first pass, but he seized her again, and calling upon Sarah to play for them, whirled his amante into the seductive measures of a waltz. I was interested, yea charmed, for he is a graceful and skillful waltzer, having learnt it in Germany, – & waltzing is a new sight for me.  But Sally, who does not [t]olerate this amorous absurdity of her learned & hitherto unloving cousin, would not long indulge him in the evident pleasure of encircling his mistress in his arms; they had to stop for want of music.

Sally, lovely Sally is the Sarah Calhoun whom Moragné was assisting as Sarah played the piano –a daughter of William Caldwell Calhoun and Catherine Jenna Degraffenried. The year after this gathering at the Nobles’ house, Sarah married her cousin, Floride Noble’s brother Ezekiel Pickens Noble. Ezekiel was the Ezekiel of whom Moragné writes here, and Col. Patrick Calhoun Noble was his father.

Then Moragné adds:[30]

But in a few moments this amorous youth of forty five, who has just found out that making love is better than making fun, had seated himself by his inamorata, & was holding a conversation in love’s low tones…. Upon that, Sarah left the room, & I followed. These doings create mirth for us all; but we are all equally astonished to find this invincible, who resisted the whole armada of Spa[in]’s bright-eyed daughters – the pensive grace of German beauty, & the sparking effulgence of the bright galaxy of American stars, into which birth & station have thrown him –this traveller ­– this scholar – this “bon-vivant,” this sceptic in love, now bending “genoux,” before a heartless coquette, with a dark skin, & muddy blue eyes! – She has drawn him into the toils, & he has given himself unreservedly, like an old fool of forty five. And the best of it is –Floride, & Sarah are “en fureur” about it – !  ha! ha! ha! – some little jealousy I warrant – no inconsiderable distinction to be mistress of “Millwood!”

The following morning, Moragné noted that James sent in for Miss Belt (who had evidently not come to breakfast by that point) so that they could make an early start on her return home. Her brother had come to take her home, and “Mr. C [i.e., James Edward Calhoun] is resolved to carry her to Mrs. N[oble]’s in his carriage.”  And then:[31]

When we came out to breakfast Col. Noble asked me with a smile what I thought of the eccentric behaviour of his relative.

I told him, “that the symptoms were certainly those of love; and giving due credit to the honor of a gentleman they inevitably tended towards mariage.”

He concurred with me in saying, “that Mr. C had gone too far to recede honorably; b[ut] appeared to be incredulous on the subject of his marriage.” Ah thought I how “A man can smile, & smile, & be a villain.”

She may have made the first advances it is tru[e], but will any man’s code of honor justify him in returning such harmless sporting with attentions, calculated to excite hopes, which he never intends to realize?

When Moragné wrote of the “seductive measures of a waltz,” a dance James Edward had learned in Germany and at which he excelled, and when she noted, “waltzing is a new sight for me,” she’s indicating that waltzing seems to have been a novelty, and perhaps a scandalous one, in the South Carolina upcountry in the 1840s. On 30 August 1845, Eugenia Calhoun, a sister of the Sarah Calhoun I’ve just discussed, wrote her sister Martha from John C. Calhoun’s Fort Hill house discussing the wedding of Bell Harleston the previous week, which she had attended, and speaking of waltzing and the scandal some people attached to the dance.[32] Eugenia was writing to seek permission from her older sister Martha and Martha’s husband Armistead Burt to be a bridesmaid at another wedding, that of Kate Wilkins, and she also hoped that Martha and “Brother Burt” could accompany her to that wedding. If that were possible, she could meet them or other family members either at Washington or Charleston and then proceed from there.

In the letter, Eugenia confesses her love of dancing and says she had at last learned to waltz, and had waltzed at Bell Harleston’s wedding dance with Bernard Bee, a West Point graduate. Her friend Kate had told her waltzing with gentlemen was dreadful, though Eugenia thought it customary and said she could not see the slightest impropriety in it. She says that if her sister Martha and Brother Burt saw any impropriety in waltzing, she would not do it again. 

To sum up Moragné’s acidulated impressions of James Edward Calhoun: He was, she granted, a “refined scholar,” a “gentlemanly scholar.” But he was also, so she had been informed, a vulgar man of low taste given to swearing (he had, after all, done time in the Navy, and sailors are notorious for their salty oaths). He waltzed right well and played the guitar and could talk with erudition about a range of scholarly subjects. But he made himself ridiculous courting an inamorata with muddy blue eyes when he was “a youth of forty-five” (James Edward was actually forty when Moragné made these notes in her diary), mortifying his cousins Sarah Calhoun and Floride Noble, who were en fureur at his overtures to his Miss B. Was Moragné hinting that, given the Calhouns’ propensity for marrying cousins, Sarah and Floride may have entertained hopes that one of them might become mistress of Milwood? Or was she implying that Miss B. had set her cap for James because she admired his money and property? And Moragné impugns James’ honor, using words like “villain” as she suggests that he might be toying with Miss. B.’s affections when he had no intent to ask her hand in marriage.

What’s all this about? Why the uncharitable assessment of a neighbor whose extended family had been, one gathers, nothing but kind to Miss Moragné? “The eccentric, & wicked, but highly gifted James Edward Calhoun,” indeed! The fact that James had reached the age of forty and not married seems to have stuck in the craw of his family and made them think that he looked ridiculous as he entertained the overtures of prospective brides – and at the same time, as early as June 1824, James’ brother John was encouraging him to settle down and find a wife. So it’s clear that his family wanted him to marry and make himself less “eccentric” by doing so.

James Marries Maria Edgeworth Simkins, 1839

On 4 February 1839 in Washington, D.C., James Edward Calhoun married Maria Edgeworth Simkins of Edgefield County, South Carolina, daughter of Eldred Simkins, U.S. Congressman from South Carolina (1818-1821), and Eliza Hannah Smith. James Edward was forty-one at the time, and Maria twenty-two. The marriage announcement in the Edgefield Advertiser notes that a Reverend Noble solemnized the marriage.[33] This was likely Reverend Mason Noble (1809-1891), pastor of Fourth Presbyterian church in Washington, D.C., and a Naval chaplain during the Civil War.

James’ bride Maria was an intimate friend of his niece Anna Maria Calhoun, daughter of John C. Calhoun and Floride Bonneau Colhoun. The November prior to James and Maria’s wedding, Anna had married Thomas Green Clemson.[34] Anna stood by Maria’s side as her friend married Anna’s uncle James. As Ann Ratliff Russell writes,[35]

A month after her marriage to Thomas Clemson, Anna Calhoun (John C. Calhoun’s daughter), was ecstatic at Maria Simkins’ plans to wed Anna’s very own uncle, James Edward Calhoun. Anna and Maria were life-long friends. Surprised that the two, who had known one another for so long, should suddenly make such a match, Anna found her uncle James, a forty-year-old bachelor, to be quite smitten with Maria’s perfections and “more altered, by love,” than anyone she had ever seen. To her brother Patrick, who was at West Point, she asked in confidence: “What do you think, of your aunt Maria?” Such sentiments as those Anna attributed to her uncle James were seen typically among nineteenth-century youth but not restricted to them alone. Historian Orville Vernon Burton cites James Edward Calhoun’s feelings for “Anna Clemson’s best friend, Maria Simkins of Edgefield,” as not unlike those of younger men who under familial and societal pressure to excel discovered security in love in “what could otherwise be a very unsure world.”

Noting the close lifelong friendship between Anna and Maria that helped pave the way for Maria’s marriage to Anna’s bachelor uncle, Russell writes (p. 72):

While heterosexual desires were inhibited, a close relationship among females was not considered taboo in nineteenth-century American society, which recognized such intimacy as socially acceptable. A strongly felt same-sex association represented one facet of the female experience that was regarded as a basic feature of American life from the late 1700s through the mid-1800s.

Following James and Maria’s marriage, the close connection between Anna and Maria continued, with Anna spending long periods of time at Millwood in Abbeville County, where James and Maria lived, and with her husband Thomas G. Clemson agreeing to farm with her uncle James, until it became apparent to Thomas that James was ineffectual at farming, and Thomas and Anna left Millwood, where James had added an extra room to the house to accommodate Thomas and Anna while the two men farmed together.[36]

Then tragedy struck: on 14 April 1844 at age twenty-seven, Maria Simkins Calhoun died in childbirth at the home of James’ cousin Francis Wilkinson Pickens, whose first wife Margaret Eliza Simkins was Maria’s sister. Margaret had died in 1842. Maria and her child were buried in the Simkins family cemetery at Edgefield. According to James’ friend Francis de Sales Dundas, James was away on a Naval voyage when his wife Maria died.[37]

James’ Final Years After Maria’s Death in 1844, and His Death in 1889

Following Maria’s death, James Edward did not remarry, though a curious article widely carried by newspapers in many places when James was around eighty-five stated that he was intending to marry an unnamed woman many years his junior, a marriage that clearly never took place, since there’s no record of it and Dundas states that he did not remarry following Maria Simkins’ death.[38]

In the years following Maria’s death, up to his own death at Millwood on 31 October 1889, when he was just short of ninety-one years, James was treated as an eccentric and a hermit, a man living alone on his plantation (albeit with a slew of servants who were enslaved prior to Emancipation), with peculiar habits such as his preference for sleeping Naval style in a hammock rigged up in his bedroom, rather than a bed.[39] His passion for reading and studying and his ability to speak fluently a number of languages were regarded as marks of his eccentricity. Newspaper articles in various places occasionally commented on all these things. On his linguistic accomplishments, see, e.g., the notice above from the Charlotte Observer on 25 January 1884 (picking up an article from Augusta News), noting that James spoke “a dozen languages fluently.”[40]

Several days after James’ death the Abbeville Press and Banner published a lengthy article on 6 November 1889, with a subheading stating that it would offer “Notes of His Peculiarities.”[41] The obituary goes on to speak of the “Eccentricities of the Deceased,” noting that he was a Naval man in his youth, then married Maria Simkins (the obituary misspells the surname as Simpkins), and lived alone for many years following her death.

James’ obituary in the Keowee Courier concludes,[42]

For the last fifty years he has led the life of a hermit, devoting himself exclusively to the increas[e] of his estate.

The Washington Post entitled its obituary, “A Hermit for Fifty Years.”[43]

The Intelligencer of Anderson, South Carolina, published, by contrast, a generous obituary stating that James was “one of the most remarkable men in South Carolina.”[44] This obituary continues:

His chief object in enlisting in the navy was to see the world and seek adventures, and he lost no opportunity of throwing himself into those positions in which he could best accomplish these ends. His wealth, position, influence, and ability enabled him to gratify his tastes. He joined many expeditions and visited nearly every quarter of the globe. He was with the celebrated Long expedition, which explored the great Northwest, at that time an unknown wilderness, and visited the spot where Chicago now stands long before it had been thought of as a site for a city.

Francis de Sales Dundas provides a list of generous contributions James Edward Calhoun made to his local community while, as gossip said, living the eccentric life of a hermit at Millwood. These included donating his extensive library to the city of Greenwood, South Carolina, to found a public library, and providing generously for the building of a Catholic church, the church of the Sacred Heart, at Abbeville.[45]

Prior to his death, James Edward had made a will on 19 October 1889. The will bequeathed his lands in Abbeville, Pickens, and Oconeee Counties, South Carolina, and Elbert County, Georgia, to various nieces and nephews and great-nieces and great-nephews, and appointed James Edward’s great-nephew Patrick Calhoun of Atlanta executor. The will also made a bequest of 150 acres in Elbert County, Georgia, to Caroline Calhoun, who is described as “my faithful servant.”

Impressions of James

Dundas memorialized James Edward Calhoun as follows:[46]

Physically, he was of medium statue, slender but of striking military bearing; blue eyes; perfect teeth, all his own; ruddy complexion and grey hair; a brilliant conversationist and full of good humor; very kindly and affable to all, irrespective of station in life. He was also very active, notwithstanding advanced years. Even at ninety years of age, the compiler saw him on old Bob, his high spirited saddle horse, riding along the river road accompanied by his man, William, who always handled the lines over Jack and Mandy – two fine mules with mane and tail like a horse – on the Colonel’s trips to Abbeville in the covered wagon. The reason for the long mane and tail of the mules? Colonel James Edward maintained it is not in the Bible to shear the mane and the tail of a mule; consequently, insofar as he and his mules were concerned, he did not propose to establish a precedent!

In her Stories of Abbeville and Its Past, Mary Hemphill Greene reproduces a 30 March 1931 reminiscence of James Edward provided by Fannie Calhoun Marshall, who turned 99 on 17 March 1931. She was the daughter of Joseph Calhoun and wife Fannie Darracott, and was born at Calhoun Mill on 17 March 1832. Fannie stated that she remembered with pleasure her visits to Millwood at Christmas and “strawberry times,” when James Edward would have a house party for “the Haskell boys, the Parker boys, the Nobles and Moses Taggart,” and would dress in Spanish costume and dance the fandango for the young people. Mrs. Marshall said as well that she recalled James Edward being the first person to try to raise tea in Abbeville County.[47]

Mary Hemphill Greene’s recollection about James Edward growing tea in Abbeville County is corroborated by a number of newspaper articles reporting on this venture, including the announcement above in the Intelligencer of Anderson, South Carolina, on 5 June 1884, stating that Col. James Edward Calhoun was raising some fine tea on his plantation in Abbeville County.[48]

In his study The Calhoun Family and Thomas Green Clemson: The Decline of a Southern Patriarchy (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1983), historian Ernest McPherson Lander Jr. offers interesting notes about the contrast between James Edward and his brother John Ewing Colhoun, who inherited their father’s Keowee Heights plantation. Whereas John was “undependable, preferring gambling, drinking, and gadding about to devoting the necessary attention for the successful operation of his vast plantation,” Lander describes James Edward as follows (p. 13):

James Edward was generous, dependable, and trustworthy, and he was an entertaining conversationalist with his world travels and broad knowledge. He took special interest in his nieces and nephews and was ever ready to counsel them about their deportment and studies.

As a footnote to James Edward’s note in his diary on 30 September 1825 that “we ‘Southrons’ are little given to the pencil & hardly merit to be called a thinking people,” here’s an interesting passage penned by Mary Elizabeth Moragné in her journal on 5 August 1840. Noting that she had passed through Pendleton that day, she writes,[49]

We passed today through old antiquated Pendleton – it is a rich looking village; but bears the marks of age. The great female examination was in progress; and Cousin D. who called there to see Dr Taylor informed us that young ladies of thirteen, & fourteen were out-vieing in Latin & Greek the academic praises of the first youths of the country – monstrous! I fear we shall have some learned young ladies! The poor gentlemen are low enough in their esteem now; & when the “dear creatures” get to scanning hexameters & all the other meters instead of the needle & the distaff – I dare say they will think themselves quite able to live alone as it is likely they may be obliged to do ­– this education system is very fatal to the prospects of “double-blessedness.” I wonder gentlemen have not taken that hint from the Turks long ago. Allow a woman to know she has a soul, & she will certainly take the management of it into her own hands.

Lord forbid that young ladies, “dear creatures” though they be, get to scanning hexameters. When that happens, they’ll soon drop the needle and distaff and likely not find a husband, since who would want such a curiosity as an educated wife? If Moragné was summing up the attitude of many Southerners of this period about female education, then James Edward was right on the mark with his observation that “we ‘Southrons’ are little given to the pencil.”

As the previous posting notes, James Edward Calhoun is buried beside his sister Floride Bonneau Calhoun in the cemetery of Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church at Pendleton, South Carolina, with a tombstone marker stating his dates of birth and death.

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[1] See Find a Grave memorial page of James Edward Calhoun, Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church cemetery, Pendleton, Anderson County, South Carolina, created by Herb Parham III, with tombstone photos by Herb Parham III.

[2] On this collection and its materials documenting James Edward Calhoun’s life, see The Papers of John C. Calhoun, vol. 2: 1817–1818, ed. W. Edwin Hemphill (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1963), p. xix.

[3] See “Names in South Carolina,” the University of South Carolina’s Institute for Southern Studies Journal 23 (winter 1976), p. 14, William Oswald Dundas is described as “an intimate friend of James Edward Calhoun.” In his The Calhoun Settlement, District of Abbeville, South Carolina (Staunton, Virginia, 1949), p. 14, Francis de Sales Dundas states that his father was “an intimate friend” of James Edward Calhoun, a friendship antedating the Civil War, which continued for many years. In November 1879, the Dundas family moved from Washington, D.C., to Abbeville County, South Carolina, where they lived until February 1890 at the Montevino plantation outside Abbeville, not far from James Edward’s Montevino plantation: Francis de Sales Dundas, Dundas—Hesselius (Philadelphia: Historical Publication Society, 1938), p. 71.

[4] John Ewing Colhoun Papers, 1774-1961, collection 130, Wilson Library of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

[5] James Edward Calhoun Correspondence, Princeton University Library.

[6] William O. Dundas Collection, Booth Family Center for Special Collections at Georgetown University Library. And see supra, n. 3.

[7] The letter is in the John Ewing Colhoun Papers, 1774-1961 at Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, collection no. 130, and is available digitally at the website for this collection.

[8] Dundas, The Calhoun Settlement, p. 11.

[9] Papers of John C. Calhoun, vol. 2: 1817–1818, p. 397.

[10] Dundas, The Calhoun Settlement, p. 11.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Papers of John C. Calhoun, vol. 2: 1817–1818, pp. 419-420.

[13] Ibid., p. 418.

[14] The Papers of John C. Calhoun, vol. 3: 1818–1819, ed. W. Edwin Hemphill (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1967), pp. 37-8.

[15] Ibid., p. 15.

[16] Ibid., p. 185.

[17] Ibid., pp. 657-8.

[18] Dundas, The Calhoun Settlement, p. 11.

[19] Ibid.

[20] The letter is in John C. Calhoun Papers, Calhoun Family 1819-1845 in the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library of Duke University. The letter is in box 1, folder 2, of the John Caldwell Calhoun Family Series of this collection.

[21] The letter is in the John Ewing Colhoun Papers, 1774-1961 at Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, collection no. 130, and is available digitally at the website for this collection.

[22] The letter is in ibid., and is available digitally at the website for this collection.

[23] The letter is in John C. Calhoun Papers, Calhoun Family 1819-1845 in the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library of Duke University. The letter is in box 1, folder 2, of the John Caldwell Calhoun Family Series of this collection.

[24] The diary is in John Ewing Colhoun Papers, 1774-1961, collection 130, Wilson Library of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

[25] Dundas, The Calhoun Settlement, p. 13.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Mary E. Moragné, The Neglected Thread: A Journal from the Calhoun Community,1836-1842, ed. Delle Mullen Craven (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1951), p. 45.

[28] Ibid., p. 46.

[29] Ibid., pp. 99-100.

[30] Ibid., p. 100.

[31] Ibid., pp. 100-1.

[32] The letter is in John C. Calhoun Papers, Calhoun Family 1819-1845 in the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library of Duke University. The letter is in box 1, folder 2, of the John Caldwell Calhoun Family Series of this collection.

[33] Edgefield Advertiser (28 February 1839), p. 3, col. 3.

[34] Robert Elder, Calhoun: American Heretic (New York: Basic Books, 2021), p. 301.

[35] Ann Ratliff Russell, Legacy of a Southern Lady: Anna Clemson Calhoun, 1817-1875 (Clemson: Clemson University Press, 2007), p. 75.

[36] Ibid., pp. 95-7.

[37] Dundas, The Calhoun Settlement, p. 13.

[38]Ibid. See e.g. Savannah Morning News (2 October 1885), p. 5, col. 1, stating that Col. James Edward Calhoun, aged about 90, “a man of letters, wealth and eccentricity,” would be leading a “fair widow” to Hymen’s altar in December.

[39] On this, see “James Edward Calhoun Marker to Be Put at Savannah River,” Index Journal [Greenwood, South Carolina] (25 March 1953), p. 5, col. 1-3.

[40] “John C. Calhoun’s Brother-in-Law,” Charlotte Observer (25 January 1884), p. 3 col. 4.

[41] “James Edward Calhoun,” Abbeville Press and Banner (6 November 1889), p. 4, col. 3.

[42] Keowee Courier (7 November 1889), p. 1, col. 6. The same obituary was published in the Yorkville Enquirer (6 November 1889), p. 2, col. 8.

[43] “A Hermit for Fifty Years,” Washington Post (1 November 1889), p. 1, col. 2.

[44] “Death of Hon. J.E. Calhoun,” Intelligencer [Anderson, South Carolina] (7 November 1889), p. 2, col. 4.

[45] Dundas, The Calhoun Settlement, pp. 14-5.

[46] Ibid., pp. 13-4.

[47] Mary Hemphill Greene, Stories of Abbeville & Its Past: From Abbeville {ress & Banner, 1931-1940 (n.p., n.d.), pp. 12-13.

[48] Intelligencer [Anderson, South Carolina] (5 June 1884), p. 2, col. 5.

[49] Moragné, The Neglected Thread, pp. 176-7.